In my last post, I pointed out we weren’t making enough effort to expand supply to curb inflation. Similar to oil, the prospective future product increase will work to lower prices today and into the future. Energy, so essential to the World’s economy, is the starting point, but other building blocks, commonly called commodities, face the same hurdles for expansion.

Blessed with a wealth of minerals and highly productive farms, the U.S. is a commodity powerhouse, or at least it was in the past. Look around and almost everything you see originated in the ground. To expand oil production, you need steel and lots of other stuff. Want clean energy? You have to have everything from rare earths to a mountain of copper. 

The same attitude stifling increased oil production is evident in our ability to increase the supply of other commodities. Instead of maximizing our resources, we depend on others, some unfriendly, for basics. We have set up a world-class obstacle course to open a mine in the U.S.

In the past, I’ve pointed to Arizona’s Resolution deposit’s decades-long, unresolved journey to yielding copper. It’s not as if Arizona is new to copper mining. The state is the nation’s leading producer. The Resolution mine is potentially the largest ever in the state. A combination of environmentalists and Indian tribes have litigated the project to a standstill.